should i be scared yet?
i want to ask you this, and yet
the one thing i am afraid of, it seems
is letting those words escape
as we make our move across the plains
of sheer, drunken power
shimmering strength hidden among hushed voices
as the space stretching from my shoulders to yours
grows smaller, inch by inch
until the whole world has been crushed between our bodies
and we are the only ones left
and the silence
is ours to fill, ours to defeat
should i be scared yet? i ask myself
as we are drawn into battle, side by side
and yet it feels less like a war
and more like a dangerous dance
so with my fear pocketed
and the question mark buried at the bottom
i press play, a harrowing decision
and i move away from the buttons
before i can change my mind
and innocently, softly
i remind the world to hold on tight
because you and i
are moving space and time tonight

Cords are becoming loose,
Affections floating the boat
To the island of Disappointment

Oxytocin no longer rushes
Staying stagnant
Until a trigger releases the manacles
Tied stiffly

Assumed there is a chance
But you waived the golden opportunity

Embarked on the journey
Of self-indulgence
Into your picked avenue

Casanova
Betrayer
Narcissist

Hypocritical Not I
But you showed me
I will decry

She must have been kicked unseen or brushed by a car.
Too young to know much, she was beginning to learn
To use the newspapers spread on the kitchen floor
And to win, wetting there, the words, "Good dog! Good dog!"

We thought her shy malaise was a shot reaction.
The autopsy disclosed a rupture in her liver.
As we teased her with play, blood was filling her skin
And her heart was learning to lie down forever.

Monday morning, as the children were noisily fed
And sent to school, she crawled beneath the youngest's bed.
We found her twisted and limp but still alive.
In the car to the vet's, on my lap, she tried

To bite my hand and died. I stroked her warm fur
And my wife called in a voice imperious with tears.
Though surrounded by love that would have upheld her,
Nevertheless she sank and, stiffening, disappeared.

Back home, we found that in the night her frame,
Drawing near to dissolution, had endured the shame
Of diarrhoea and had dragged across the floor
To a newspaper carelessly left there.  Good dog.